Title : NSF 88-16 A Brief History
NSF Org: OD / LPA
Date : July 15, 1994
File : nsf8816
THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION:
A BRIEF HISTORY
PREFACE ii
I THE PAST IS PROLOGUE 1
CONTENTS
II THE EARLY YEARS TO SPUTNIK 6
III FROM SPUTNIK THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE, 1957-1968 13
IV TUMULTUOUS TIMES, 1968-1976 20
V NEW CONCERNS NEW OPPORTUNITIES, 1977-1985 26
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE 32
i
PREFACE
The past is dead; long live the past! History provides a unique and
valuable perspective. An account of things past allows one to see broad
themes that recur in the present and continue into the future. History
does not repeat itself exactly, but events and issues of the past do
have a tendency to reappear albeit in slightly different form. That is
why the aphorisms, "Study the Past" and "What is Past is Prologue,"
carved into the entrance to the National Archives, are cited so often.
Policy makers run the risk of "reinventing the wheel" when they make
judgments on problems they face unless they are well informed about the
context in which previous decisions of a similar nature were made, what
alternatives were considered, why certain ones were chosen, and what
personal and impersonal forces shaped a particular policy. Thus history
can be a useful component of sound public policy.
This brief survey of the Foundation makes no claim at being a
definitive account. More research into the many activities of the
agency is needed before an overall judgment can be reached.
Nonetheless, the ensuing story may be helpful to agency personnel and
members of the public needing to know something about the major issues
and events that confronted the agency throughout its history. It should
be read, however, with the understanding that it is only a preliminary
assessment.
Several Foundation "old hands," as well as others who are relatively
new to the agency, read drafts of the paper. I appreciate the time and
effort they put in on the task. I considered their comments with great
care and, where I felt appropriate, have incorporated them herein. I
alone, however, accept responsibility for all statements of fact and
interpretations.
George T. Mazuzan
NSF Historian
ii
CHAPTER I
THE PAST IS PROLOGUE
A consensus among historians is that the Second World War has been the
watershed event in 20th century American history at least, and perhaps
in world history. Never could there be a return to the earlier days of
the century. The war thrust the still historically young United States
into the lead as the world's premier power. America emerged from the
conflict untouched by the physical destruction that laid waste so many
of both its rivals and allies. Its capital infrastructure likewise was
intact. At war's end the United States dominated as no nation had done
since Great Britain controlled its vast empire in the l9th century. The
immediate postwar years nonetheless proved to be a time when the nation
would be taxed to provide leadership and policies for not only
rebuilding a war-torn world but also returning to a domestic situation
that would bring some semblance of normalcy from the crises of the
preceding fifteen years.
World War II and the prewar Great Depression--an historic combination
of two important epochs--caused a vast expansion of government agencies
and services at the federal level. The back-to-back crises of the 1930s
and 1940s also caused a majority of Americans to look to the national
government to perform a myriad of functions, from providing employment
to insuring bank deposits to mobilizing industry and universities for
the war effort. Since 1789 the federal government had slowly taken a
more active role in the affairs of the nation. Events after 1929, and
particularly after the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as
president in 1933, accelerated government activism. By early in the
Second World War many political leaders, as well as citizens brought
into the government to help with the crisis, recognized that in many
areas continued government activity after the war would be in the best
interest of the nation.
Support of basic scientific research was an area affected by increased
government involvement. There had been numerous, if modest,
government-science interactions throughout the history of the Republic,
but the Second World War vastly intensified that environment. Not only
was government support of scientific endeavors sharply escalated, but
the relationships among government agencies, universities, private
foundations, and industry were altered in ways that disallowed a return
to prewar times. The war greatly strengthened, for example, the link
between the nation's universities and the government. Even more
far-reaching was the role of the military as a large and permanent
supporter of basic and applied scientific research. As early in the war as
1942, these accelerating government-science community relationships interested
some politicians about whether research support would be continued after the
war.
The situation prompted a New Deal senator from West Virginia, Harley
Kilgore, to introduce in 1942, 1943, and 1945 successive pieces of
legislation aimed ultimately at creating a National Science Foundation.
Reflecting his populist New Dealer views, Kilgore envisioned a broad
science organization (including the social sciences) that supported
through grants and contracts both basic and applied research and
incorporated geographic distribution of research funds. The agency
would be responsible to political authority. The year-to-year Kilgore
hearings and legislation quite naturally interested the scientific
community, which had a major stake in the outcome.
One leading science spokesman was Vannevar Bush, a respected engineer
and science administrator who headed the government's wartime Office of
Scientific Research and Development. Bush agreed with Kilgore that
federal support of science should continue after the war, but he
disagreed with the senator's approach. Partially to counter it Bush
maneuvered to have President Roosevelt request from him a report on how
the nation should support science in the postwar period. Bush's 1945
response, Science--The Endless Frontier, became famous as the
prescription for government support of science. It also was an antidote
to the Kilgore suggestions.
Science--The Endless Frontier argued strongly for the concept of
continued government support of science, but it proposed carrying out
the function in the traditional manner in which Bush was most
experienced. The report defined the method: through a government agency
that supported only the best "basic research in the colleges,
universities, and research institutes, both in medicine and the natural
sciences, adapted to supporting research on new weapons for both
Services, [and] adapted to administering a program of science
scholarships and fellowships." Best science in Bush's mind had to be
elitist in the sense of supporting the most excellent scientists; it
had no formula for geographic distribution. Bush nonetheless saw
support of science as promoting the general welfare and not just a few
scientists. From his short catchy title onward, Bush capitalized on a
popular American historical theme: "... the frontier of science
remains. It is in keeping with the American tradition--one which has
made the United States great--that new frontiers shall be made
accessible for development by all American citizens." He argued that
government support of science research and education would benefit
everyone through its contributions to the peacetime economy and
national security. The same day the White House released the report,
Bush had arranged with Democratic Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington
to introduce a bill that incorporated the ideas contained in
Science--The Endless Frontier.
Five years passed before Congress and the administration found common
political grounds on which to create a National Science Foundation. It
took that long, and a presidential veto, to work out the many
compromises necessary to bring reality from the differences in the
Kilgore and Magnuson versions of the idea. Debate revolved around
several issues: patent ownership, geographical distribution of funds,
inclusion of the social sciences, basic versus applied research, and
administrative control of the agency. Nebulous interpretive language
eventually bridged the differences. The new agency, for example, was to
avoid "undue concentration" of its funds, thus leaving the geographic
distribution question to interpretation by the leaders of the
Foundation. The thorny question of the social sciences was not
resolved; the act's term, "other sciences," could be read to include
the social sciences entrance but gave them second-rate status compared
to the mathematical, physical, biological, medical, and engineering
sciences that were specifically mentioned in the statute.
Administrative control of the agency brought the biggest imbroglio.
Bush and his supporters wanted authority placed in a part-time
independent board dominated by scientists that would appoint a director
who would be responsible to the board. Any other arrangement Bush
feared might bring political control of the agency's support of
research. Thus he took the elitist position; he thought the best
research should be directed independently by those who knew science
best--the scientists themselves. After two years of debate, in 1947,
Congress passed a measure along the lines Bush advocated, but it was
unacceptable to President Harry S Truman. His veto message noted that
the act allowed the agency to be "divorced from control by the people
to an extent that it implies a distinct lack of faith in democratic
processes." In fact, Congress, if not Bush, should have known better.
Truman's position was known before his veto. It had been articulated
before the congressional committees earlier by his Bureau of the Budget
witnesses. The administration wanted a director appointed by the
president with a presidentially appointed board acting in an advisory
and policy making capacity. Thus the agency would be accountable to the
people through the president.
In spite of the arguments that held up the founding of the National
Science Foundation, the five year debate never questioned the support
of science; rather it always swirled around the issue of how it should
be supported. How was the ethic of pure science, with its esoteric
subject matter appealing only to a few, to be supported in a nation
that was traditionally most comfortable with practical goals that
applied to the many? How could "best science" elitism accommodate the
geographical and institutional pluralism of America? Those fundamental
questions were not answered then and are still discussed vigorously. At the
time of Truman's 1947 veto, however, support of basic science research by the
federal government had already spread in part to other government agencies.
The explosion of two atomic bombs over Japan in August 1945 ushered in
public awareness of nuclear energy. For national security reasons,
American policy makers quickly decided that this powerful energy source
would continue to be guarded closely by the government. The ensuing
Atomic Energy Act of 1946 restricted the use of nuclear data and
effectively carved off the field of nuclear energy as an independent
area of research. The Atomic Energy Commission, which assumed control
of Manhattan Project facilities in January 1947, soon became a leading
government scientific agency. It concentrated its support of basic
research and fellowships primarily in physics.
Science--The Endless Frontier called for support of biomedical research
in the new research foundation. During the war, Bush's Office of
Scientific Research and Development had great success coordinating the
government's sponsorship of medical research. But when the creation of
the National Science Foundation ran afoul of politics in the postwar
period, the Public Health Service assumed these responsibilities within
its already established National Institute of Health (at the time,
there was only one). Much NIH research was conducted in its own
laboratories, but after 1945 the agency added a popular extra mural
grant program that increasingly gained from Congress sizable
appropriations and an enduring political constituency.
Bush's report also called for a continuation of military research in
peacetime by the civilian-controlled organization, with close liaison
with the Army and the Navy. That recommendation was based on Bush's
wartime experience. When the Office of Scientific Research and
Development went out of existence in December 1947, the secretaries of
War and Navy created a new board to fill the void. In the meantime, the
Navy quickly moved to establish close ties with the nation's research
universities. It gained statutory approval for an Office of Naval
Research in 1946. Although headed by a naval officer, the office had as
its deputy administrator a civilian chief scientist to direct the
scientific program. While the primary purpose of the office was to
perform research of direct use to the Navy, the office also supported
wide-ranging unclassified basic research that had little bearing on
naval issues. Developing a good working relationship with the civilian
science community, the office allowed results of research to be
published in the open literature and pioneered in using eminent
scientists to evaluate the research projects it sponsored. Thus the
Office of Naval Research became a model for a government grant-making
agency. The National Science Foundation later adopted many of its
techniques.
So by 1950, when the National Science Foundation came into existence,
there was already an extensive though disjointed government sponsored
research system for the sciences. Although Science--The Endless
Frontier still could be claimed as the blueprint for government
supported science through a central agency, the intervening
circumstances between 1945 and 1950 brought major changes in the
government-science community environment. It set the stage for future
difficulties. This new context, so different from 1945 when Bush's
report was written, would not allow the National Science Foundation the
strong central role as the major supporter of basic research that Bush
envisioned. Nonetheless, the agency was in place. Only time and the
circumstances of the 1950s and beyond would prove whether it would be
important to basic science in America.
CHAPTER II
THE EARLY YEARS TO SPUTNIK
President Truman signed the bill creating the National Science
Foundation on May 10, 1950. The act provided for a National Science
Board of twenty-four part-time members and a Director as chief
executive officer, all appointed by the president. Among other things,
the law directed the agency to encourage and develop a national policy
for the promotion of basic research and education in the mathematical,
physical, medical, biological, engineering, and other sciences; to
initiate and support basic scientific research in the sciences; and to
evaluate the scientific research programs undertaken by agencies of the
federal government. Organizationally, the Foundation could create
whatever divisions were necessary to carry out its activities, but the
act specified that four divisions had to be included: medical research;
mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences; biological sciences;
and scientific personnel and education. The latter division was
responsible for scholarships and graduate fellowships.
Throughout the summer of 1950 lists of respected scientists who might
be considered for appointment to the National Science Board made the
rounds in official Washington. By November President Truman had named
the full complement of the board. It would be a while longer before a
director was named; in early March 1951, Truman nominated Alan T.
Waterman, the chief scientist at the Office of Naval Research and
previously a physics professor at Yale. Vannevar Bush gave perhaps the
best estimate of Waterman: "He is a quiet individual, a real scholar,
and decidedly effective in his quiet way, for everyone likes him and
trusts him." At the Foundation, Waterman fulfilled that estimate. He
served two six-year terms, retiring in 1963.
To no one's surprise, Waterman turned to former colleagues and
acquaintances at the Office of Naval Research to recruit several of his
principal Foundation staff. Both his deputy and general counsel had
served at Navy. So did the first head of scientific personnel and
education and the director of the division of biology. The only
non-Navy principal was the director of mathematical, physical and
engineering sciences. The agency augmented this group by recruitment
from the academic community. Waterman never activated the fourth
statutory division--medical science--because NIH was supporting so much
research in the field. The Foundations small medical science program
eventually was combined with biology.
Waterman assumed the agency would not have a permanent physical home as
long as it was in a growth stage. Consequently, the Foundation occupied
several buildings successively, with the common requirement being that
the location be not too far from the Foggy Bottom area that housed the
National Academy of Sciences and its National Research Council, private
organizations created in 1863 and 1916 respectively. In 1951, the
agency started operations in a residential structure at the corner of
16th and I Street, N.W. Later that year it moved to 2144 California
Street, N.W., but it quickly outgrew that building. In 1953, the
Foundation settled in the old Cosmos Club at H Street and Madison
Place, N.W., with auxiliary offices in the historic Winder Building
across 17th Street from the Executive Office Building. The expansion of
the agency as a result of Sputnik brought another move--to 1951
Constitution Avenue in 1958. The Foundation remained there until 1965
when it moved to its present location at 1800 G Street, N.W.
Two themes dominated operations during the first years of the
Foundation and both had roots in the language of the act. Officials at
the Bureau of the Budget, on the one hand, wanted the agency to develop
federal science policy and evaluate federal science programs throughout
the government. The law, in fact, directed the agency to perform those
functions. On the other hand, Waterman and the science board, dominated
by academic scientists and administrators, insisted on emphasizing
support for basic academic research and graduate education which were
also statutory functions.
Waterman had good reason for this tack. For a young agency to become
involved with evaluation of programs of other agencies would stir
bureaucratic resentment, particularly from the well-established
programs in the mission agencies. His experience at the Office of Naval
Research warned him about that. Waterman used the argument that the law
did not give the Foundation adequate authority over other agencies and
departments. The Bureau of the Budget nevertheless pressured the agency
on its position because it saw the Foundation, being the only agency
with a mandate for general science programs, as one that could
coordinate the pluralistic federal science program and help the
president's budget staff resolve budgetary choices.
Waterman withstood the pressure from the budget office even as he
defined the Foundation's policy role as one of advocating a research
support program, improving government-university relations, and
compiling reliable information on scientific research and manpower. And
that role the agency pursued. Until amended in 1953, the original act
limited the annual appropriation for the agency to $15 million. During
fiscal year 1951 (until 1976, the federal fiscal year ran from July 1
to June 30), Congress appropriated only enough money for the agency to
start administrative operations. Its first real budget began in fiscal year
1952 and even then the appropriation was late. Although the agency asked for
an amount near its statutory limit, it was shocked to receive only $3.5
million. Vannevar Bush, in Science--The Endless Frontier, had interestingly
called for a first year budget of $33.5 for the Foundation, rising to $122.5
by the fifth year. But times had changed since the immediate postwar period.
Basic scientific research by the early 1950s was overwhelmingly supported
through the mission agencies. The Korean conflict was underway. Congress,
therefore, was not willing to provide a large outlay to the new Foundation
even though it had a broad mandate to support general science research.
While the budget was being negotiated, the small agency staff planned a
program to support individual research projects in the mathematical,
physical, non clinical medical, biological, and engineering sciences.
Approved by the board, the staff concluded that the project grant
system would work best. In adopting this procedure, it followed the
pattern of most of the private foundations and the Public Health
Service. It thought the project grant with its non-restrictive features
was best suited to achieve two agency objectives: encourage the best
basic research and ensure a comprehensive research program.
Early guidance to prospective investigators suggested what should be
included in the proposals in order for the staff to make an evaluation.
It should contain a description of the intended research, procedures to
be followed, facilities and equipment available, biographical
information on the principal investigator and others participating in
the research, and a budget. The proposal had to have the approval of
the originating institution and be signed by an official authorized by
the institution. Although an individual researcher submitted a
proposal, for administrative purposes, a successful grant would be
awarded to the institution to support the research of the individual.
Grants would cover direct costs plus up to 15~ for indirect costs.
Proposals went to the appropriate division and subsequently to the
program officer responsible for either the discipline or function. The
programs were generally organized by discipline in the mathematical,
physical, and engineering sciences, and by sub discipline in the
biological and medical sciences (regulatory, systematic, molecular,
etc.). Program officers were the agency's front line people. They had
to work within budgets and always had more good proposals than they had
money to support. Program officers read each proposal and arranged for
external review. Generally, program officers solicited mail reviews in
the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, and used a
combination of mail and assembled panel reviews in the life sciences
and later in the social sciences. From the beginning keen competition
meant that only the best proposals were funded.
Program officers were also the front line decision-makers in that
they often had to select among seemingly equal proposals. Scientific
merit was the main criterion. The budget alone prevented all
meritorious projects from being funded; in some instances proposals
were awarded but the funding had to be carried over to the next fiscal
year. This created backlogs and merely increased the pressure on
program officers to limit selections even more.
By supporting only the best science, the agency opened itself to
criticism from levelers about lack of geographical distribution. The
largest number of early awards went to a few geographically
concentrated colleges and universities. Although the award statistics
also revealed some diversity, James B. Conant, the first chairman of
the science board, captured the essence of the Foundation's philosophy:
"In the advance of science and its application to many practical
problems, there is no substitute for first-class men. Ten second-rate
scientists cannot do the work of one who is in the first rank." That
first-class scientists were predominantly at only a few institutions
did not stop the critics.
Program officers reviewed proposals not only to fund individual
research projects, but also supported scientific conferences and
symposia as well as travel of scientists to international meetings and
congresses. Although these projects took only a small part of the
Foundation's budget, the agency considered them important enterprises
that would add to the prestige and understanding of American science.
Beginning in the late 1940s a new Red Scare known best as "McCarthyism"
brought a pallor of uneasiness over the nation's universities and
government agencies. "McCarthyism" was due largely to the onset of the
Cold War with the Soviet Union, which made security an important
national issue. Particularly questioned was the loyalty of scientists
who worked for the government on weapons projects, and the issue was
underscored by the stripping of the security clearance in 1954 from one
of the nation's most noted and respected scientists, J. Robert
Oppenheimer.
When Senator Joseph McCarthy questioned the loyalty of a number of
academic scientists applying for research grants from the National
Institutes of Health, Foundation officials worried that its applicants
might be next. Consequently, the science board adopted a policy in 1954
announcing that awards of research grants would continue to be based on
the investigators' competence and the merits of their research
proposals. No security checks would be instituted for prospective
grantees, in part because the agency supported only unclassified
research and in part because the awards were made to the sponsoring
institutions, not to the scientist directly. The Foundation's only
condition stated that it would not knowingly support the research of an avowed
communist. The policy was a bold move given the climate of the times and the
fact that McCarthy was at the height of his power. But it worked and two years
later President Dwight Eisenhower made the Foundation's example
government-wide policy.
By its charter, the agency also had a mandate to increase the number
and quality of scientists in the nation--the research base. Very early
the Foundation started a fellowship program for graduate students and
postdoctoral scientists. It announced the first awards in 1952. The
agency contracted with the National Research Council of the National
Academy of Sciences to establish screening panels to group the
fellowship applicants on merit. From the groups the program staff in
the Office of Scientific Personnel and Education made its
recommendations to the Foundation director. The task was difficult
because the staff had to spread the awards among the disciplines as
well as to meet the statutory requirement of wide geographical
distribution. Once selected, however, a fellow could choose where he
wanted to study. This suited Foundation officials. Since most fellows
elected to study at a small group of prestigious schools, the agency's
sharpest critics cried elitism. The Congress, however, was generally
satisfied because each state was at least represented. The agency held
fast to the principle of freedom of choice.
To counter the criticism, in 1957, the Foundation expanded the program
by creating a cooperative graduate fellowship program, best known later
as traineeships. The awardees were graduate students in situ. This
resulted in increasing the number of fellows at a larger group of
universities without violating either the freedom of choice principle
or the principle of support for the best scientists. The traineeship
program did not have the same prestige, however, nor did it last.
Traineeships came and went in response to national needs.
The high standards for selection of fellows set the Foundation's
program apart and attracted national attention. The agency also
published the names of applicants who achieved honorable mention in the
fellowship selection process. Often these very qualified people
subsequently were supported by fellowship programs from other
institutions and agencies or selected as teaching assistants in
university science and engineering departments.
Debate over including the social sciences in the programs of the
Foundation had punctuated the legislative history of the statute. Those
disciplines finally were permitted but not required under the rubric of
"other sciences." In the early 1950s, it took the patient diplomacy of
a few social scientists as well as pressure from congressmen to
overcome the opposition of most of the staff and the science board to
integrate into established agency programs some social science
disciplines that converged with the natural and life sciences. Anthropology,
human ecology, and demography, for example, were included in the biological
sciences division and in 1955 the Foundation placed a program for
sociophysical sciences in the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
division. That program included mathematical social science, human geography,
economic engineering, statistical design, and the history, philosophy, and
sociology of science. But not until 1958 did the board approve formal support
of the "other sciences" by creating an office of social science that brought
all the disciplines together. Even though they had to meet rigorous standards
of "objectivity, verifiability, and generality," a great many scientists
opposed including the social sciences. One board member commented in 1958:
"...we have to face up to the fact that the social sciences--except for a few
extremely limited areas--are a source of trouble beyond anything released by
Pandora."
The early and mid-1950s saw preliminary work done toward moving the
agency into an area soon referred to as "big science," which eventually
would take a sizable percentage of the Foundation's budget. New centers
for radio and optical astronomy and for atmospheric research required
facilities and instruments so costly that only the federal government
had the resources to build, equip, and operate them. The Foundation,
under its charter, could not directly operate research laboratories, so
these facilities were managed under contract by associations of
universities which had special competence in the sciences concerned.
The facilities, however, were open to all qualified researchers.
Negotiations leading to contracts for these centers brought accusations
of monopoly along with some fear that the Foundation's move into "big
science" would cause the individual project grant to lose its share of
funding.
Designation of the Foundation as the funding agency and coordinator of
American participation in the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58
also brought the agency into new areas of large-scale science in global
atmospheric and oceanographic research and worldwide ecological
studies. The Foundation's main interest during the designated year
focused on research in Antarctica. It resulted in a continuing program
there with the Foundation as the lead agency. In 1959, the United
States concluded a treaty with the other nations engaged in Antarctic
research that reserved the continent for peaceful and scientific
research.
Even before the Soviets put Sputnik I in orbit on October 5, 1957, the
Foundation and American scientists had been concerned with the state of
American science vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Fiscal years 1957 and 1958
witnessed substantial increases in the Foundation's budget. Sputnik
dramatically underscored the Soviet American competition. While the
satellite provided the first human reach beyond the planet, it
symbolized in America the need
for improving scientific education and basic research, needs already
known to the scientific community. While that was the importance of
Sputnik, equally important was the fact that the nation had already
taken steps in the postwar period to build a scientific establishment
that could meet the challenge of this more visible scientific
competition. That became the legacy of the early years to Sputnik.
CHAPTER III
FROM SPUTNIK THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE, 1957-1968
Sputnik once again elevated the word "competition" in the language of
government officials and the American public. Sputnik threatened the
American national interest even more than the Soviet Union's breaking
of America's atomic monopoly in 1949; indeed it rocked the very defense
of the United States because Russia's ability to place a satellite into
orbit meant that it could build rockets powerful enough to propel
hydrogen bomb warheads atop intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Perhaps more importantly, however, Sputnik forced a national
self-appraisal that questioned American education, scientific,
technical and industrial strength, and even the moral fiber of the
nation. What had gone wrong, questioned the pundits as well as the man
in the street. They saw the nation's tradition of being "Number One"
facing its toughest competition, particularly in the areas of science
and technology and in science education.
With its ties to the nation's research universities, the Foundation of
course became a key player in the unfolding events during this trying
time. An indication is shown by the large increase in Foundation monies
for programs already in place and for new programs. In fiscal year
1958, the year before Sputnik, the Foundation's appropriation had
leveled at $40 million. In fiscal 1959, it more than tripled at $134
million, and by 1968 the Foundation budget stood at nearly $500
million. Highlights of this phase of the agency's history cannot be
told in a vacuum, however, but must be placed within the broad context
of American political happenings.
The Congress reacted to Sputnik with important pieces of legislation
and an internal reorganization of its own committees. Taken together,
the action announced that America would meet the Soviet competition.
The National Aeronautics and Space Act, more than any other
post-Sputnik law, had great impact on increasing federal funding of
scientific research and development. Signed by the president in July
1958, the law created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) and gave it responsibility for the technological advancement of
the space program. NASA became a major contracting agency and boosted
tremendously the extra mural research support of the federal
government. NASA not only symbolized America's response to the Soviet
challenge, but also dramatized the federal role in support of science
and technology.
Within the Congress, members reorganized to form permanent
standing committees to deal with the space issue and with science and
technology in general. The reorganization provided the Congress with a
focal point not present before for science and technology issues. For
the first time, too, the legislative branch gained a professional staff
trained in science and technology. In mid-1958, the House created the
Committee on Science and Astronautics while the Senate established the
Committee on Aeronautical and Space Science. Although the latter
committee limited itself to NASA and space issues, the House
committee's jurisdiction extended over the space program and the
nation's general science policies. This included oversight of the
Foundation.
Sputnik raised questions about the ability of the nation's education
system to compete. Congress responded with the National Defense
Education Act of 1958. It emphasized science education and became a
significant part of the country's science policy. The act provided a
student loan program, aid to elementary and secondary school
instruction in science, mathematics and foreign languages, and graduate
student fellowships. While it was directed mostly at students rather
than institutions, and was administered out of the United States Office
of Education, the law had an important impact on federal support of
science education. Both its fellowships and its institutional benefits
followed geographic distribution patterns rather than the competitive
elitist format typical of Foundation programs. Of even greater
significance, however, the act opened the way for future legislation
that redefined many of the relationships between the federal government
and the education community.
The National Defense Education Act of 1958 also directed the Foundation
to establish a Science Information Service. The agency always
considered the dissemination of scientific information as one of its
main support functions. It had, since 1953, run the National Register
of Scientific and Technical Personnel, a function assumed from the
Office of Education. The new Office of Science Information in the
agency provided both research and administrative support programs that
covered storage and retrieval systems, mechanical translation, support
for scientific publications, scientific data centers, and collection of
foreign science information. The frequent notation, "Source: National
Science Foundation" under graphs, charts, and tables in a wide variety
of books and articles attested to the importance of the function.
As early as 1953, the Foundation had supported a few summer institutes
for college teachers, but was extremely hesitant to start similar
enterprises for high school teachers. It reluctantly did so in 1954
with one small institute, following in the footsteps of successful
institutes sponsored by industry, universities, and private
foundations. This slowly broadened in the years before Sputnik, as
reports of Soviet schooling in science and mathematics raised queries in
Congress about American support of education in the hard sciences. Although
Foundation officials harbored reservations about its authority to support high
school teacher training, and furthermore did not give it a high priority,
Congressional pressure in this area taught them that Congress could and would
set priorities for the agency through the budget process. By the summer of
1957, for example, there were institutes in all but five states. That fall
Sputnik brought a huge boost in the Foundation budget for teacher institutes
along with a chance to try other educational projects, including adoption of
new curricula in physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics.
Long before Sputnik, science policy makers were concerned with the
state of research facilities and instrumentation, particularly at the
nation's colleges and universities. The 1947 Steelman Report (the
report of a temporary presidential board, headed by Truman assistant
John R. Steelman, that addressed the status of American science)
recommended that federal aid be given to universities for construction
of facilities and purchase of expensive equipment. The report noted
that distribution of surplus government property from World War II made
a beginning in this direction, but that a more permanent solution had
to be found. As a harbinger of what was to come, in 1956, Congress
established a Health Research Facilities Program within the National
Institutes of Health. It provided grants for up to 50~ of the cost for
construction, remodeling, and equipping laboratories for health related
research mostly at medical schools.
Early in 1956, the Bureau of the Budget asked the Foundation to report
on the current status and future needs for research facilities and to
ascertain the government's role in providing assistance. The
Foundation's June 1957 report, "Federal Financial Support of Physical
Facilities and Major Equipment for the Conduct of Scientific Research,"
found three conditions that affected the state of college and
university science laboratories. First, the report emphasized the
current deterioration of the nation's laboratories through long use, a
condition exacerbated by a moratorium on new construction during World
War II and current rapidly rising construction costs. Second, the
nation was about to enter a period of greatly expanded college
enrollment (the post-World War II "baby boom") that would have a
tremendous impact over the next few years on the science laboratory
needs. Third, the accelerating pace of scientific development and
innovation tended to shorten the useful life of much of the equipment
and instrumentation presently in place.
Since involvement by the federal government in aid to college and
university education had always been a controversial issue, the report
recommended a government policy of proceeding cautiously to support
only facilities with a predominantly research character and to refrain from
supporting facilities with an educational character (the report left unstated
how to separate the two). The Foundation underscored that the first
responsibility of the colleges and universities should be to seek funds from
other than federal sources, and it set conditions before federal support would
be considered: that there be an urgent need, it be in the national interest,
and funds from other sources not be available. Consequently, the launching of
Sputnik a few months later "merely" became a force that propelled the federal
government more rapidly along a course that the Foundation had already
recommended.
The Foundation's institutional programs, as they came to be called,
outlived the immediate crisis of the Sputnik period and expanded into
the "Golden Age" of science funding in the Lyndon B. Johnson
administration. While Sputnik provided the thrust for the early
programs, the burgeoning baby boom college population in the middle
years of the 1960s, coupled with a wider role for the federal
government in education under President Johnson's Great Society
program, became the continuing driving force for many of the
Foundation's programs.
In 1963, Congress passed the Higher Education Facilities Act and two
years later it was incorporated in the broader Higher Education Act of
1965 as part of the Great Society program. Run by the Office of
Education, both acts provided grants for general facilities
construction at colleges and universities. Science facilities were a
substantial part of the outlay, but the important point is that with
passage of the two laws, a major general college building program
began, supported largely by the federal government. New and continuing
Foundation institutional programs not only fit this milieu but
benefited from the larger Great Society philosophy.
The Foundation had started in 1960 with its Graduate Science Facilities
program. It provided matching grants to help graduate degree granting
universities build or renovate their research laboratories. After 1962,
most of its funds went toward new construction. The agency's
Institutional Grants for Science, started in 1961, broadened support
for already established or first tier institutions through a formula
based on awarded grants. In 1964, the Foundation launched its Science
Development Grants, better known as the Centers of Excellence program.
Spurred on by pressure from the executive branch, the agency wanted to
increase the number of institutions of recognized excellence in
research and education in the sciences. Criticism had been heavy for
some time for the agency to redistribute science funding. By
deliberately excluding the top twenty elite universities and
concentrating its funding on second tier institutions, and by
emphasizing geographical dispersion, the Centers of Excellence program
not only responded to outside criticism but reflected the philosophy of
the Great Society.
Relatively large awards were made to hire new faculty, support graduate
students, and construct new facilities. In 1966, the agency broadened
the program to include Departmental Science Development awards and
Special Science Development awards to improve those subunits at many of
the nation's second tier universities.
Like the construction funded under the Higher Education Acts, most of
these agency programs outlasted the Great Society but were scaled back
or eliminated in the more austere budgets of the early 1970s. Later
surveys showed that in spite of the large increase in construction at
the nation's colleges and universities, the increase in the baby boom
college population apparently outdistanced construction. While the
construction improved the infrastructure, student crowding along with
continued use of the new facilities and instrumentation still meant a
future need at a lot of places.
Big science projects accounted for a large part of the Foundation's
increasing budgets during this period. And despite concerns that such
enterprises might affect the budgets for the Foundation's traditional
individual researchers, those fears proved unfounded. Expanding
astronomy centers, the Antarctica program, and a new atmospheric
research center were well-managed enterprises that contributed much
scientific knowledge through basic research and continued to receive
sizable appropriations. It is true that Project Mohole, a cleverly
devised attempt to gain knowledge of the earth by drilling through its
mantle from an ocean platform, became a management and financial
albatross before Congress terminated it in 1965-66. Mohole opened the
way, however, for other deep ocean sediment investigations. The Deep
Sea Drilling Project began in 1968 and over the years revealed much new
evidence about the theories of continental drift, sea floor spreading,
and the general usefulness of the ocean basins. The program also became
a model of international cooperation as several foreign countries
joined the operation.
The Foundation's role in federal science policy making changed during
this era. Alan Waterman had avoided the difficulty of attempting to
coordinate federal science activities during the early years. After
Sputnik, President Dwight Eisenhower's appointment of the first
presidential science adviser unofficially relieved the Foundation of
some of its coordinating responsibility. Eisenhower also established
the President's Science Advisory Committee in 1957, consisting of a
group of eminent scientists who collectively advised on a part-time
basis. Thus science policy had a voice for the first time at the White
House level. In 1959, the president took the advisory committee's
advice and created a Federal Council for Science and Technology, made
up of the heads of all federal agencies responsible for scientific
research and development. The nine-member council was to consider
research-related problems that cut across the missions of their agencies and
make recommendations to the president. Eisenhower and President John F.
Kennedy appointed strong science advisers and the advisory committee rendered
good service. The council, however, proved somewhat ineffective, mirroring the
view Waterman had so long taken about coordination of the government's
pluralistic science and technology policy.
Official notification that the Foundation would no longer be
responsible for coordination of federal science policy came in 1962. In
June, President Kennedy issued Reorganization Plan No. 2, an executive
directive that added to the Executive Office of the President a
permanent Office of Science and Technology headed by the science
adviser. The plan simultaneously relieved the Foundation of its
government-wide evaluation and policy making functions by transferring
them to the new unit.
Throughout his two-term tenure, Waterman had vigorously adhered to a
policy of support primarily for basic research in the face of growing
pressure from several quarters to support applied research as well. In
1958, for example, Congress forced the agency reluctantly to supervise
the government's weather modification program, a definite applied
science endeavor. But for the most part, Waterman and his successor,
Leland J. Haworth, who served from 1963 to 1969, believed that the
first obligation of the agency should continue in the direction of
basic research in the natural sciences. A physicist like Waterman,
Haworth came to the Foundation from a position on the Atomic Energy
Commission and prior to that he served as director of the Brookhaven
National Laboratory.
In the aftermath of Sputnik, Congress during the 1960s became more
involved with the nation's science policy. Out of that concern, the
House Committee on Science and Astronautics established a Subcommittee
on Science, Research and Development, best known as the Daddario
Committee after its chairman, Democrat Emilio Q. Daddario of
Connecticut. In 1965 it began an extensive review of the Foundation's
charter that culminated in 1968 with amendment of the Foundation's
basic law.
Joined by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts as Senate sponsor,
the Daddario-Kennedy amendment required annual review of the
Foundation's programs before both the House and Senate science
subcommittees and annual authorization for its appropriation.
Continuing authorization had been provided prior to the amendment.
Organizationally, the deputy director and four assistant directors were
to be appointed by the president. Up to then, only the director had to
meet that requirement, while the assistant directors were appointed by
the director. The amendment also designated the social sciences as a
field eligible for Foundation support, elevating it from the vague
"other sciences" category in which it had languished since 1950. But
the most controversial part of the amendment authorized the Foundation
to support applied as well as basic research. It hearkened back to the
arguments of the postwar 1940s over the creation and purpose of the
Foundation. The Daddario-Kennedy amendment considerably changed the
Foundation, but it remained as the only general purpose science agency in the
federal establishment that supported basic research.
Shortly before his untimely death, President Kennedy addressed the
National Academy of Sciences on its hundredth anniversary. He warned
the gathering that "scientists alone can establish the objectives of
their research, but society, in extending support to science, must take
account of its own needs." The elitism embodied in the
science-government relationship dating to the post-World War II years
had to give way to a broader, more democratic base. Kennedy's
successor, very much a modern democrat and leveler, a graduate of
non-elitist Southwest State Teachers College in Texas, probably did
more to democratize that relationship through his Great Society
philosophy than he is generally given credit for. In 1965 Lyndon B.
Johnson told his cabinet that it was "very much the concern of the
Federal Government" through funding of basic research to be sure that
the nation's "future must rest upon diversity of inquiry as well as the
universality of capability." So by bringing a Golden Age to science
funding while insisting that those funds be distributed widely, Johnson
made his impact.
Toward the end of his administration, however, the Golden Age came to
an end. Increased spending on the Vietnam War coupled with outlays for
other domestic programs forced reductions in civilian research budgets.
The Foundation's budget increases of the previous few years leveled
off. The next several years would see the Foundation still supporting
basic research as its major endeavor, but also would see it embarking
on new ventures in untried areas.
CHAPTER IV
TUMULTUOUS TIMES, 1968-1976
Changes in the charter of the Foundation through the Daddario-Kennedy
amendment coupled with events throughout the government and the nation
made the period from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s a tumultuous time
for the agency. While the Foundation's mission of support to basic
research in science and engineering and assistance to science education
remained, it already had become evident that the Foundation could not
live in an isolated environment unaffected by the happenings around it.
Whether the Foundation wanted the exposure or not, issues focused
attention on the agency.
Political matters loomed large in the early years of the Richard M.
Nixon administration. The continuing Vietnam war with its politicizing
of students and professors, additional spending on the previous
administration's entitlement programs, and emergence of a new national
interest in the environment all either indirectly or directly affected
the Foundation. At the very least, the first two diverted possible
federal funds from Foundation programs while the environmental movement
provided a context for the growing interest in the applied research
that the agency could conduct under its new legislation.
The year 1969 brought new leadership to the Foundation. President Nixon
selected William D. McElroy as the agency's third director. A
biochemist who headed the biology department at Johns Hopkins, McElroy
took on the directorship after a political imbroglio over an earlier
candidate embarrassed the Nixon administration. Cornell scientist
Franklin Long had been tentatively selected to replace Leland Haworth,
but became unacceptable due to his opposition to the administration's
anti-ballistic missile program. The heretofore non-political selection
of a director appeared to be violated although the administration
somewhat redeemed itself in its choice of McElroy, a registered
Democrat who claimed he voted as an independent most of the time.
McElroy made it clear when he took the reins of the Foundation in the
summer of 1969 that he would operate differently than had his
predecessors. He proclaimed a goal of increasing the agency's
appropriation from its $400 million plus level to Sl billion within
three years. He would not forsake basic research, which remained the
mainstay of the agency's business, but clearly wanted to use some of
the budget to move in different directions. When he resigned in 1972,
his billion dollar goal had not been reached, but the agency's
appropriation had increased to $650 million and some of the changes he sought
were just beginning to be implemented.
McElroy wanted to rid the Foundation of the passive role that he
thought the agency had taken to that time. Aware that the mood of the
country had become mistrustful of science in general, he sought to
change that image at least in terms of what the Foundation could do
about it. To get larger appropriations, McElroy began to woo Congress
aggressively. He also worked more closely and often directly with the
Office of Management and Budget to shape the Foundation's outlays and
programs. At times, this placed him in an uncomfortable position with
the science board, which traditionally had interacted closely with the
director on agency program development and internal policies. The
increased role of the Office of Management and Budget in setting
Foundation policy through budget decisions had a long-lasting effect on
the agency.
A program that provided one of the biggest controversies in the history
of the agency blossomed and faded during the period 19691977. Research
Applied to National Needs, better known as RANN, was an operation that
stemmed from the Daddario-Kennedy amendment giving the agency authority
to conduct applied research. In response to the amendment, in 1969, the
Foundation established a modest applied research program, named
Interdisciplinary Research Relevant to Problems of Our Society
(IRRPOS), to which Congress appropriated $6 million in fiscal year
1970. At the time, both the newly-appointed McElroy and the Bureau of
the Budget (soon to be renamed Office of Management and Budget) had
shown interest in having the Foundation direct attention on socially
relevant scientific research. IRRPOS, however, reflected the
traditional approach of the agency by responding to proposals from the
scientific community rather than the agency stimulating specific
research proposals. The emphasis of the awarded grants was in the areas
of environmental quality and urban growth and management. IRRPOS
operated for two fiscal years when it expanded into RANN.
In late December 1971, following a failed attempt to design a
comprehensive "technical innovation" initiative for a presidential
message on science, the Office of Management and Budget told McElroy
that if the agency could produce a major applied research effort that
would focus science resources on national problems, the Foundation
could increase its budget by $100 million. In part, the administration
wanted to stimulate a faltering economy and had directed that most
agencies increase spending during the 1972 budgetary year. In return,
the Foundation agreed to phase out its institutional programs and a
major portion of its educational programs. The Office of Management and
Budget directed that about half the increase could be used for applied
research and the remainder would be used to cope with the agency's
increased responsibilities under the Mansfield amendment. That 1970
piece of legislation made it unlawful for the Defense Department to fund basic
research unless it was clearly related to a military function or operation.
The amendment nonetheless stressed the need for such research and ordered the
Foundation rather than the defense agencies to provide it.
RANN was the Foundation's response to the Office of Management and
Budget initiative and it officially lasted until 1978, when it was
reorganized into a smaller applied research directorate. During that
time, nearly $500 million was appropriated for the program. From the
beginning RANN was different. It was organized around designated
problems rather than science disciplines and its criteria and
management were foreign to previous Foundation management practices. It
addressed many of the domestic problems that were in the headlines of
that era: pollution, transportation, energy, and other urban and social
difficulties. RANN attempted to link industrial enterprises and
academic research, with the hope of industry eventually supporting
parts of the program. In retrospect, RANN recognized the relationship
of basic science to international competitiveness. But criticism
abounded. It came from segments of Congress, from other agencies, and
particularly from the science community (including the science board
and most Foundation staff), which feared that RANN would drain funding
from the traditional aspects of basic science.
Director McElroy and his successor, H. Guyford Stever (19721976),
argued that a large share of the monies for RANN actually involved
basic research in support of the various applied research projects
funded. Such arguments never appeased some of the most vociferous
members of the basic research community. The program began to phase out
in 1975 and 1976, when parts of RANN went to related in-house
disciplines while about two-thirds of the program that dealt with
energy was transferred to the Energy Research and Development
Administration. RANN, nonetheless, was a harbinger of the Foundation's
effort of a decade later to link academic basic research with industry
to help stem the crisis the nation faced in international
competitiveness.
By the end of his first term, President Nixon had become dissatisfied
with his White House science advisory group. Its members sometimes
disagreed with him on issues important to his political objectives. The
two most notable examples were the supersonic transport and the
anti-ballistic missile. Some members of the President's Science
Advisory Committee also dissented publicly over the administration's
conduct of the war in Vietnam. It was all part of a growing political
consciousness particularly tied to the nation's colleges and
universities that dated back to the mid-1960s. It became obvious that
the White House science apparatus was beginning to lose the
effectiveness it had earlier, but it still came as a surprise to the
science community when the president announced a reorganization plan in
January 1973.
Nixon abolished, effective on July 1, the Office of Science and
Technology. At about the time he announced the plan, the president also
terminated the post of science adviser and accepted the pro forma
resignations of members of the President's Science Advisory Committee.
The role of science adviser to the president would be assumed by Guy
Stever in addition to his job as director of the Foundation. The move
quickly brought hearings by the Congress and a general uproar from the
basic science community that science had been deprived of substantial
status and influence in the nation's top ruling circle.
The administration defended the move primarily through testimony by
Stever and Raymond Bisplinghoff, the deputy director of the Foundation.
The defenders used political accountability as the fundamental
argument. Under the former organization, the White House science and
technology apparatus appeared politically accountable only to itself
and the group of specialists it effectively represented. Under the new
arrangement, Stever argued, the science adviser, appointed by the
president and approved by the Congress, could respond to growing
pressures that friends of basic science were needed in other areas.
Furthermore, the president could draw upon the only federal
organization that had a mandate covering all of science and also was
responsible to the president. In effect, the argument continued, the
reorganization restored the original mandate of the Foundation, by
making the agency and its director responsible for national science
policy advice. The basic science community and critics of the Nixon
reorganization, however, did not accept the administration's arguments.
Among many suggestions, a National Academy of Science report in 1974
epitomized the basic science community's position. It advocated that
scientific expertise should be heard above the din of politics.
Specifically, it suggested a three-member council for science and
technology. The council would be a part of the president's inner circle
and would provide balanced judgments on issues of science and
technology. The report had many supporters, representing mostly the
postwar science establishment in Washington that had lost its insider
position by the Nixon reorganization. No one criticized Stever
personally, but many suggested that wearing both hats was too much of a
burden for one person to assume.
Stever knew he needed help to perform both tasks. He established a
science and technology policy office within the Foundation to assist
him in his advisory duties. He brought in some new people, but several
Foundation staff people were also used on an ad hoc basis. The
administration required research and development assistance in the wake
of the 1973 Arab oil embargo crisis. The Foundation staff helped out.
In addition, the staff was heavily involved in scientific exchanges
with the Soviet Union during this period. Altogether, the situation taxed the
agency greatly.
When Gerald Ford became president in the summer of 1974, he wanted
restoration of a separate White House science apparatus. Ford insisted
that any new arrangement, however, be established by legislation rather
than by executive directive. After two years of negotiation, during
which time the Foundation continued its dual role, the Congress created
a new Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) within the
Executive Office of the President. The head of OSTP would be the
science adviser to the president. Ford selected Stever for the office.
The statute did not reestablish a permanent advisory committee, but it
created a two-year President's Council on Science and Technology
(President Carter later dissolved it). By then a new context appeared
to be developing. Peace had returned to the nation and the political
unrest on the campuses had subsided. This bettered the relationship
between academic science and the administration and helped to overcome
the earlier furor over the 1973 reorganization.
The turmoil at the head of government science policy making did not
hide controversies in the agency. In addition to the on-going debate
over RANN, a new issue flared in the combined fields of science
education and the social sciences. One social science educational
project in particular, among the many that the Foundation had helped
create and disseminate since 1957, generated a controversy that brought
national attention to the agency. "Man: A Course of Study," had been
developed with Foundation funds as a course in human behavior for 5th
grade students. By the time the controversy reached the national level
in 1975, over 1700 elementary schools in 47 states offered the course.
Among its critics, Arizona Congressman John Conlan charged that the
course distorted basic family values. His criticism eventually brought
an attempt within the House of Representatives to require that all
Foundation projects gain final approval by Congress before being
funded. Fortunately for the Foundation, the proposal failed, but it
highlighted for the agency the ever-present oversight authority of the
legislative branch.
The controversy over "Man: A Course of Study" underscored best the
vagaries in doing work connected with social science values. The agency
also has been criticized at times for its support of other particular
research projects. To some, they seemed to be frivolous, obtrusive,
objectionable, quixotic, a waste of taxpayer's money or all of the
above. With the exception of its stand in the "Man: A Course of Study"
controversy, the agency's position to its critics has been not to
become defensive, but to explain as clearly as possible the nature of
research in basic science and engineering. For the most part that
strategy has worked, although at times it has made life uncomfortable
for members of the Foundation staff.
Throughout the period, budgets increased for the varied programs of the
Foundation. A ruinous inflationary trend also set in, however, that
made real gains nearly impossible. This had a grave effect particularly
on both facilities and scientific instrumentation. The agency did
manage to support such big ticket items as new ships for the
oceanography and ocean drilling programs and the Very Large Array
facility for radio astronomy. But as monies became scarce due to a
combination of inflation and the phase-out of federal facilities
programs, Foundation program officers generally encouraged support of
people over instrumentation and facilities. Consequently, academic
institutions tended to postpone new or renovative construction and the
replacement of expensive instruments. Rapid changes in instrumentation
due to new technologies compounded the situation. By the end of the
period many scientists were worried about the quality of
instrumentation and what that held for the future of American science.
In spite of the turmoil of the period, the fundamental mission of the
Foundation remained unchanged. Traditional support of basic research
continued to be the mainstay of the Foundation's programs, and through
such support new advances were made in all the fields of supported
science. More institutions successfully competed for grants, which was
a credit to the Foundation and also helped to stifle the earlier
criticism about geographic distribution. No one questioned the place of
the federal government as the principal patron of basic research in the
nation. Budgets and competing priorities for scarce federal dollars,
however, made the leaders of the agency wary about the future. As
scientists and as bureaucrats, they recognized, too, that the annual
agency budgets had to be fitted to the priorities the administration
placed on support of science within the broader context of national
goals and aspirations.
CHAPTER V
NEW CONCERNS; NEW OPPORTUNITIES, 1977-1985
Just as the earlier years of the Foundation's history could not be
viewed in a vacuum, so the more recent period must be treated the same
way. Two circumstances influenced the Foundation during the period
leading to the present. First was the attitude toward basic science
taken by the two administrations that occupied the White House during
these years. The second condition was the overwhelming effect of the
economy on the federal budget throughout the period. Its significance
continues beyond the ending date for this short history.
At first glance the administrations of Presidents Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan appeared to be dissimilar, and in many ways they were.
But they dovetailed in one important tendency. The Carter presidency,
the first Democratic administration since 1968, did not fit the liberal
image of its Democratic predecessors. The nation had changed its
political ideology considerably and by 1976 had moved toward the
conservative side of the spectrum. Carter, who came from the moderate
right side of the Democratic Party, perceptively rode the changing
political environment to victory against his similar moderately
conservative opponent, Gerald Ford. Carter campaigned against the
Washington bureaucracy and the entrenched interests that he perceived
lurking there. Once in office, he attempted to reduce the size of the
federal establishment. While he was less than entirely successful, his
effort symbolized a trend in the nation away from the big government of
the New Deal-Great Society era. By the end of the Carter
administration, his position on a smaller role for the federal
government became so much in the mainstream of political thought that
it was not an issue in his 1980 defeat by Ronald Reagan. In fact, the
Republican candidate highlighted that position as something for which
he also stood.
Both presidents also found common ground on areas in which the federal
government had a major responsibility. National defense is the element
most often underscored, but what is frequently overlooked is that the
major buildup of the armed forces began in the Carter administration
and was just intensified by Reagan. Likewise, both administrations
looked upon support of basic research as a responsibility of the
federal government, although for different reasons. Carter, trained as
an engineer, viewed basic research as an investment in the nation's
future and his administration sought to provide real growth in
expenditures at the Foundation and in mission agencies that had basic
research programs. The Reagan administration also believed strongly in
research support, but the rationale changed somewhat: pure science
should strengthen national defense and should contribute to economic
growth by making the nation more competitive in a high technology
world. Where the two administrations differed was in the area of
applied research. There the Reagan people believed that federal support
should be supplanted by greater private sector funding.
Support of basic research, however, was largely determined by the state
of the economy. It was the primary political issue during this time,
and both the Carter and Reagan budgets affected the programs of the
Foundation. High inflation combined with somewhat stagnant productivity
caused federal budgets to show increasingly large deficits. Even though
the Foundation's annual budgets increased in sizable amounts during the
Carter years, real gains were offset by inflation.
The Reagan administration took drastic budgetary measures in non
defense areas to reduce the federal deficit while at the same time
remove the government from activities it thought more appropriately
belonged to other sectors. Although basic science remained an area that
the administration supported in its overall budget, parts of the
research spectrum were targeted for reduction. The administration cut
the Foundation's budgets for fiscal years 1981 and 1982, with
particularly hard hits aimed at the social sciences and science
education. In both 1982 and 1983, Congress added funds to the
president's request. For the first time, the Foundation's budget went
beyond the billion dollar level in fiscal year 1983.
During the Ford-Carter-Reagan administrations, the leadership of the
Foundation changed frequently with no director serving a full six-year
term. Richard Atkinson, a psychologist who had been deputy director
under Stever, assumed the directorship in June 1977. He left in July
1980 to become chancellor of the University of California at San Diego.
John B. Slaughter succeeded Atkinson, but remained at the Foundation
only until 1982 when he became chancellor at the University of
Maryland. A physicist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Edward
A. Knapp, served the next two years. He resigned to return to Los
Alamos. President Reagan appointed the current director, Erich Bloch,
in September 1984. An engineer recently retired from an executive
position at IBM, he is the first director to come from the corporate
community.
Within the reduced government, stringent economy context of the early
1980s, the Foundation dealt with issues that moved it in new directions
and kept it at the forefront of science and engineering activities. One
of the particular areas emphasized was the role of engineering in the
agency's programs. Engineering science had been a discipline supported
by the Foundation from the beginning of the agency's history, but it
never received a lot of funding because most engineering activities
were applied in nature. After the change in the statute in 1968 allowing the
agency to support applied research, several short-term engineering activities
were supported under IRRPOS and RANN, while the long-term high-risk
engineering science program was lodged in the directorate for Mathematical and
Physical Sciences, and Engineering.
In the late 1970s, looking to new ways to stimulate economic growth and
competitiveness, the Foundation studied expanding its support of
engineering sciences. A small division since 1964, in 1979, the
Foundation elevated engineering to a separate directorate although the
applied science programs were attached to it. Nonetheless, the agency
recognized that engineering was different from science in style,
traditions, and university institutionalization. In 1981 the applied
science programs were distributed to other directorates. The Foundation
further recognized engineering that year by including it alongside
science in the Science and Engineering Education directorate. The usual
cries were heard from segments of the research community that such
emphasis would cause the engineering budget to grow at the expense of
science. But the net effect removed the heat from Congressional bills
to create a separate National Engineering Foundation.
Because engineering supports and interacts with several disciplines,
the engineering directorate moved to capitalize on this by establishing
an office of interdisciplinary research in 1981. The Foundation,
meanwhile, asked the National Academy of Engineering to examine ways in
which the agency could better support cross-disciplinary research. The
Academy's 1983 report recommended establishment of engineering research
centers, composed of larger groupings of researchers focusing on both
research and education, as a way for scientists and engineers to build
on one another's work. The agency developed a grant program to start
the centers based in part on the Academy's guidance. In addition, the
Foundation wanted the centers to provide a stronger link between
academe and industry. It also hoped the centers eventually would become
self-supporting. In 1985, the agency made the first six awards, ranging
from a center for robotics systems in microelectronics at the
University of California at Santa Barbara to a center for biotechnology
process engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Reagan administration greatly reduced the Foundation's budget in
fiscal years 1981 and 1982 in the areas of the social sciences and in
science education. Both of these areas had always received a smaller
share of funds than the physical and life sciences, but they were
particularly susceptible to budget cuts under the new administration's
philosophy. The administration did not consider social science as an
area that supported the long-term economic health of the nation. The
elimination of science education fit the philosophy of relinquishing
the federal government's role in an area that it thought rightfully belonged
to the state and local sectors. Sustained argument with officials of the
Office of Management and Budget by the science board and the director, coupled
with intense lobbying by the social science and science education research
communities kept funds for those areas from being totally removed. Some modest
increases resulted in these programs in later years.
The administration recognized that the national interest of the United
States was reflected in the ability of the nation to compete in a high
technology world. The Foundation, as the only agency providing general
science support, has increasingly found itself at the cutting edge of
that effort. New areas of research policy are in the offing in science
and engineering and in education. Since 1982, the administration has
advocated sizable expenditures in the Foundation's programs, especially
in the physical and life sciences. The agency has also expanded its
relationship with industry and state and local sectors, areas not
entirely familiar to an agency accustomed to doing business mostly with
the academic research community. At the same time, the agency has
encouraged its academic constituency to look at industrial knowledge
that would be applicable to both industry and science. All this has
provided more visibility to the Foundation as the nation embraces high
technology as a main solution to some of its national problems. It is a
role the agency has shunned throughout its short history, preferring
instead to do its job in the wings rather than close to center stage.
How well the Foundation adapts to its changing place in the government
establishment and in the expanded world of academic and industrial
science and engineering will test all parts and traditions of the
agency.
What broad themes, then, does this short survey of the history of the
National Science Foundation provide the reader? To start, one would be
wise to read or reread Vannevar Bush's classic short report,
Science--The Endless Frontier. What Bush wanted to convey about the
role of basic research in the progress of American science and
technology is as appropriate today as it was in 1945. He emphasized
that the frontier of science is always present and in keeping with the
American tradition should be exploited for the good of the nation. He
wrote that scientific research was tied to the nation's quest to avoid
economic dislocation as well to create a reservoir of "scientific
capital" so that it could remain at the forefront of scientific
discovery. Bush argued convincingly and articulately for government
support of science through an agency committed to pure science. His
theme recurs throughout the agency's history and is particularly
prescient in today's environment.
The larger context in which the agency's programs and policies
developed are important to keep in mind. No agency operates in a
vacuum. What happens in the larger world often drives an institution in
a certain direction or at least causes it to vary its course. World War
II, for example, affected how policy makers viewed government support
of basic research. That event can claim a role as the handmaiden of the
Foundation. The Soviet launching of Sputnik had a major impact on the
agency, as did the expanding vision of government in America
encompassed by the policy makers in the Great Society. Both events
helped solidify the ties between the agency and the academic science
community. The Great Society environment also provided the context in
which the Foundation took on increased roles in applied science and in
the social sciences. Indirectly, the Vietnam war had an impact. By
draining funds from domestic programs and by helping to create a
negative feeling toward the government in general, the war contributed
to an uneasy environment for the Foundation, particularly in its
relations with its academic clientele. The last few years has seen a
shifting context to which the Foundation has had to adapt.
International economic competition in a high technology world places a
premium on the ability of the United States to provide science and
engineering research and education to meet the challenge. That context
already has and will continue to shape the direction the agency will
take.
Internally, policy and personnel shaped the direction the agency took
and affected the place it presently has in the nest of federal
agencies. Very early, the Foundation decided to use a flexible grant
mechanism to support its programs rather than by purchase of research
through contract. Likewise, the agency elected early to evaluate
research proposals through various forms of peer review, thereby
causing its programs to be science driven rather than bureaucratically
determined. Those policies have served the agency well and are a part
of the Foundation's tradition. Equally important, highly skilled
scientists and engineers formed the basic personnel element of the
agency staff. Early in the Foundation's history, the policy of
recruiting active researchers from the nation's universities to fill
temporary assignments developed into a tradition that has provided the
agency with a constant source of new blood and ideas. In addition, the
practice has brought closer the association of the nation's colleges
and universities with the Foundation.
Early experience with management of contractors who run the agency's
large programs--such as Antarctic research, the astronomy and
atmospheric research centers, and the ocean drilling program--has been
beneficial to the Foundation. These enterprises allowed agency managers
to be at the forefront of administering support for the new engineering
research centers and the science and technology centers that are
presently being developed.
Some issues have been debated since the early days of the Foundation
and show no sign of being resolved to the satisfaction of everyone. The
question of the fairness of peer review is raised periodically. The
issue of geographic distribution of grants versus the objective of
obtaining the "best science" has historically brought out advocates on
both sides. The concern over applied versus basic science and
engineering is a subject that also must constantly be discussed. The
proper balance between individual science projects or "little science"
and "big science" programs has been a subject of debate since the
1950s. While the arguments are often heated, the debate historically
has been good for the agency because it forces policy makers to
reassess those themes that go to the heart of the Foundation's mission.
Thus a strong case can be made for knowledge from the past to assist
those who are presently creating history. The point is not to belabor
the aphorism that "those who fail to study the past are condemned to
repeat it," but rather to recognize that both continuity and change in
history need to be understood to deal effectively with the present.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE
The history of the administration of the Foundation must be pieced
together from many sources. This short note is meant to lead the reader
to those places where one may begin to acquire an overview of the
activities of the agency.
A. Hunter Dupree's, Science in the Federal Government: A History of
Policies and Activities (Baltimore, 1986 reprint edition), is the
classic, readable survey of the evolution of the relationship between
science and government from the time of the Constitution to the eve of
World War II. It provides a prologue to post-World War II activities.
Significantly, the work was sponsored in 1956 by the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences under a grant from the Foundation--one of the
first efforts funded in the area of history of science.
The story of Vannevar Bush's wartime Office of Scientific Research and
Development is ably recounted in Irvin Stewart, Organizing Scientific
Research for War (New York, 1980 reprint edition). And Bush's famous
1945 report, Science--The Endless Frontier, is valuable reading to
understand what the Foundation is all about. It set the philosophy for
the agency. The Foundation reissued the report in 1960 with an
introduction by Alan Waterman, and in 1980 with an introduction by
Richard Atkinson.
The origins of the Foundation are recounted in: J. Merton England, "Dr.
Bush Writes a Report: Science--The Endless Frontier,'" Science, vol.
191 (9 Jan. 1976): 41-47; Daniel J. Kevles, "Scientists, the Military,
and the Control of Postwar Defense Research: The Case of the Research
Board for National Security, 1944-46," Technology and Culture, vol. 16
(Jan. 1975): 20-47; Kevles, "The National Science Foundation and the
Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942-1945," Isis, vol. 68 (Mar.
1977): 5-26; and Robert F. Maddox, "The Politics of World War II
Science: Senator Harley M. Kilgore and the Legislative Origins of the
National Science Foundation," West Virginia History, vol. 41 (Fall
1979): 20-39.
Articles assessing the early work of the Foundation include: Dael
Wolfle, "National Science Foundation: The First Six Years," Science,
vol.l26 (23 Aug. 1957):335-43; Alan T. Waterman, "National Science
Foundation: A Ten-Year Resume," Science, vol.131 (6 May 1960): 1341-54;
and Lee Anna Embrey, "The Lengthened Shadow: The National Science
Foundation," The Graduate Journal, vol. 5 (Winter 1963): 301-18.
A breezy assessment of the Foundation is found in: Milton Lomask, A
Minor Miracle: An Informal History of the National Science Foundation
(Washington, 1976), that was written under contract for the agency. An
authoritative account through 1957 is the official history by J. Merton
England, A Patron for Pure Science (Washington, 1982). Dorothy
Schaffter has written a straightforward factual work, The National
Science Foundation (New York, 1969) in the Praeger Library series of
U.S. Government Departments and Agencies. Michael D. Reagan, Science
and the Federal Patron (New York, 1969), has a good analysis of the
Foundation in Chapter Seven.
Often overlooked, but a mine of information, is the published
collection of agency annual reports. They have been issued every year
since fiscal year 1952. From 1964 through 1983 they have appeared in
two volumes, the first narrative and descriptive, the second a listing
of all grants and contracts made during the year. Since 1983, the
agency has returned to a one-volume format without a listing of grants
and contracts.
Three reports about the National Science Board are worthwhile reading.
The National Science Board and the Formulation of National Science
Policy (NSB-81-440) was written by Philip M. Smith in 1981 at the
request of the Board. In 1983, the Congressional Research Service of
the Library of Congress prepared The National Science Board: Science
Policy and Management for the National Science Foundation, 1968-1980
for the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology of the
Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Representatives.
The volume is available as a committee print (U.S. Congress, House of
Representatives, 98th Congress, 1st session, Serial E, January 1983).
Margaret L. Windus in 1984 compiled a useful document: National Science
Board Policy Activity Over the Past 10 Years (NSB-84-300).
In 1964, the National Academy of Sciences, through its Committee on
Science and Public Policy, published Federal Support of Basic Research
in Institutions of Higher Education. It provides a broad view of the
development of federal support of basic research.
Although over twenty years old, The Politics of Pure Science (New York,
1967), by Daniel S. Greenberg is still useful for the period up to
1967. W. Henry Lambright has let some dust settle on the issues of the
1960s in his recent book, Presidential Management of Science and
Technology: The Johnson Presidency (Austin, 1985). Two other
publications cover later Foundation activities. John T. Wilson, a
psychologist and former Foundation administrator, wrote Academic
Science,Higher Education, and the Federal Government, 1950-1983
(Chicago, 1983). Historian Jeffrey Stine wrote Science Policy Study
Background Report No. 1, A History of Science Policy in the United
States, 1940-1985. He prepared it for the Task Force on Science Policy
of the House of
Representatives Committee on Science and Technology (U.S. Congress,
House of Representatives, 99th Congress, 2d session, Serial R,
September 1986).